President Obama calls for public Option as Obamacare crashes

[DGUtley]

President Obama calls for public Option as Obamacare crashes

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-calls-public-option-hedged/story?id=42949512

[donttread]

President Obama calls for public Option as Obamacare crashes

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-calls-public-option-hedged/story?id=42949512


Actually if Obama did one thing right during his 8 years it was probably the ACA. I was against it, but it hasn't done anywhere near as much to bankrupt us as constant war and corporate welfare and perks have. It's not perfect, it's big government. But the richest nation on earth having tens of millions of uninsured and under insured people, many of them children was unacceptible. Insurance being tied to employment is also a very bad idea. ACA isn't perfect but when people trash it they must remember what we had before it. It may well have been a step in the right direction. The free market could not fix the problem because we killed the free market long ago. When it rises again the market may or may not have a solution but until then we had to try.
The poverty that exist in this land of super rich is a national embarrassment even to a small government guy like me. It's unacceptible.

[DGUtley]

Actually if Obama did one thing right during his 8 years it was probably the ACA. I was against it, but it hasn't done anywhere near as much to bankrupt us as constant war and corporate welfare and perks have. It's not perfect, it's big government. But the richest nation on earth having tens of millions of uninsured and under insured people, many of them children was unacceptible. Insurance being tied to employment is also a very bad idea. ACA isn't perfect but when people trash it they must remember what we had before it. It may well have been a step in the right direction. The free market could not fix the problem because we killed the free market long ago. When it rises again the market may or may not have a solution but until then we had to try.
The poverty that exist in this land of super rich is a national embarrassment even to a small government guy like me. It's unacceptible.

Why not just offer Medicare to everybody? Why force me to pay for pregnancy coverage -- a 54 year old male? I think it wasn't about insurance, it was about power.

p.s. where in the constitution's defined powers did it give the central government the ability to provide health insurance?

[MRogersNhood]

Why not just offer Medicare to everybody? Why force me to pay for pregnancy coverage -- a 54 year old male? I think it wasn't about insurance, it was about power.

p.s. where in the constitution's defined powers did it give the central government the ability to provide health insurance?

Nowhere at all.

[donttread]

Why not just offer Medicare to everybody? Why force me to pay for pregnancy coverage -- a 54 year old male? I think it wasn't about insurance, it was about power.

p.s. where in the constitution's defined powers did it give the central government the ability to provide health insurance?

I admitted it was far from perfect and no insurance is not an enumerated power. That does not change the fact that 7-10% of my lifetime income has been taken at knifepoint for SS and Medicare and I want what is mine. That is earmarked money, not a social program.
The market could not fix the problem because we have allowed the megacorps and the government they own to kill the free market and tilt the playing field. Somebody had to setp in. I would prefer it be the states, but they lack the money because the feds control tax dollars that rightfully should belong to the states.
You are correct about the power, everything they do is about power to some extent. That's why I call our tax code what it really is a "control code"
You seem like a man who would not want to see rampant abject poverty in our rich nation. How would you address the uninsured? The homeless? The couple who both work full time and STILL can't afford a one bedroom walk up without government help?

[Peter1469]

Enjoy your wealth redistribution.

[Newpublius]

That does not change the fact that 7-10% of my lifetime income has been taken at knifepoint for SS and Medicare and I want what is mine.

And just as an aside, its more because if they levied the full amount people would see the payroll tax employers pay....ie the employer's share. When you're self employed, as I was until I sold my business, you see the 'self employment' tax which is the employee + employer share. Its like 15% up to the ceiling which this year is 118,500....

[donttread]

Enjoy your wealth redistribution.


What? Do you think our SS and Medicare dollars will be confiscated? Thet would be unwise because old people vote and even young folks have skin in the game from the time they get their first paycheck.
BTW, how do you feel about so much abject poverty in such a rich nation while many modern nations handle that issue so much better?

[Newpublius]

What? Do you think our SS and Medicare dollars will be confiscated? Thet would be unwise because old people vote and even young folks have skin in the game from the time they get their first paycheck.
BTW, how do you feel about so much abject poverty in such a rich nation while many modern nations handle that issue so much better?

They are 'confiscates' --- its a 'paygo' system, meaning the money you are paying today is paying beneficiaries today. When there was a surplus, that just didn't sit there, the system bought treasury bills which financed the deficit. The government 'confiscated' it in the sense that it 'borrowed' from it with the promise to pay it back.

"As a result of changes to Social Security enacted in 1983, benefits are now expected to be payable in full on a timely basis until 2037, when the trust fund reserves are projected to become exhausted. At the point where the reserves are used up, continuing taxes are expected to be enough to pay 76 percent of scheduled benefits." -- https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/v70n3p111.html

2037 just happens to be the year I turn 65, if I make it that long.....

[Newpublius]

President Obama calls for public Option as Obamacare crashes

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-calls-public-option-hedged/story?id=42949512

We knew this from back in 2008 that this would be forthcoming. Its just a segue to single payer.

If we look at the inevitable progression here, get used to it, its going to happen. Honestly if the Republicans are smart they'd see the handwriting on the wall and make a deal TODAY while they still have something to bargain with and trade it for say....I don't know....privatizing the postal service. (They won't do that though)

[DGUtley]

I admitted it was far from perfect and no insurance is not an enumerated power. That does not change the fact that 7-10% of my lifetime income has been taken at knifepoint for SS and Medicare and I want what is mine.

Actually, that 7% is not earmarked for you. The USC has held that you have no legal entitlement to one nickel of SS money. Not one nickel. I don't fathom why the millennia generation isn't rising up over this issue alone. Mordor has it's own plan yet forces us into one that we have no legal entitlement to and that it regularly mismanages. I'd force every public union and public employee onto SS. Every one of them, and I bet it'd be much better managed. I'd let them keep my employer contribution (actually my contribution since I'm a principle in my firm) if they let me keep my half and I'd never ask them for a nickel.


The market could not fix the problem because we have allowed the megacorps and the government they own to kill the free market and tilt the playing field.
Tis is true. Let's try to let the free market reign. True free market. Competition across states' lines. Let's try this first.


Somebody had to setp in. I would prefer it be the states, but they lack the money because the feds control tax dollars that rightfully should belong to the states.
The states need to flex their muscle a bit more, perhaps?


You are correct about the power, everything they do is about power to some extent. That's why I call our tax code what it really is a "control code"
I agree.


You seem like a man who would not want to see rampant abject poverty in our rich nation. How would you address the uninsured? The homeless? The couple who both work full time and STILL can't afford a one bedroom walk up without government help?
Absolutely. The uninsured and homeless are two massive problems in this country and I'm by no means an expert. I prefer to get the central government out of the role of nanny and let the churches and charities and the states do this, though I recognize that there's just some things that these three cannot do. I would even agree and support the notion that cut my federal taxes but only to the extent that I give it to the state and charity. This cuts out the massive bureaucracy that just sucks the bone dry. I'd love to have more money in my pocket but if its at the expense of taking care of people, I'm fine -- let's take care of people. it's what we're called to do. I think that charities and local governments are far better able to address these issues and needs.

The uninsured. I said 35 years ago that we'd have single payer -- at least through the baby boomer generation deaths (of which I'm one). I'd try medicare for all. I'd try competition across states' lines. I'd try tax credits.

Massive poverty / inability to afford rent / home: These are real every day issues. We have to address the problem of this country of unemployment and a lack of desire to work, both real but different problems. I've shoveled manure, did dishes, worked in the bowels of a potter plant, worked oil wells, brick labor, pushed a broom and did so so many jobs all before I became a lawyer, no job was beneath me. I've taken the depositions of so many young people that don't work, don't want to work etc. It's maddening. How do you get that kid off the couch.

[exploited]

A true free market healthcare system would be disastrous. The only possible way to make it work is to abolish the medical patent system, as well as the FDA, and even then, it will leave millions upon millions of people uninsured, because they simply aren't healthy enough to get health insurance. Companies would stop innovating as profits slip and lawsuits rise exponentially. Drug quality would plummet, as would overall safety.

If you are advocating this, it is due strictly to ideological reasons. There is literally no evidence whatsoever that it would result in a better health outcome. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that it would result in a worse outcome.

Just go single payer. Ignore the mouthbreathing ideologues, and get it done. You'll immediately cut your spending per person in half while getting better outcomes.

[DGUtley]

A true free market healthcare system would be disastrous. The only possible way to make it work is to abolish the medical patent system, as well as the FDA, and even then, it will leave millions upon millions of people uninsured, because they simply aren't healthy enough to get health insurance. Companies would stop innovating as profits slip and lawsuits rise exponentially. Drug quality would plummet, as would overall safety. If you are advocating this, it is due strictly to ideological reasons. There is literally no evidence whatsoever that it would result in a better health outcome. In fact, there is plenty of evidence that it would result in a worse outcome.
Just go single payer. Ignore the mouthbreathing ideologues, and get it done. You'll immediately cut your spending per person in half while getting better outcomes.

1. Where's the constitutional authority?
2. Better outcomes? Really? As defined by what?

[exploited]

1. Where's the constitutional authority?
2. Better outcomes? Really? As defined by what?

The power to tax and spend for the general welfare, and the power to regulate interstate commerce. I know you guys hate that the Constitution has been interpreted in ways you dislike, but unfortunately for you, that is the case. In other words, a single payer option could be authorized using the same authority used by Medicare and the ACA.

As for outcomes, yes, really. The United States has the most inefficient healthcare system in the Western world, which produces some of the worst results. Exposing it to more free market is going to make it much worse, not better. This is because modern healthcare literally cannot survive a free market - all of the innovators would be driven out of the market place without heavy protections of their intellectual property.

http://www.who.int/healthinfo/indicators/2015/100CoreHealthIndicators_2015_infographic.pdf?ua=1

The above link is a list of the top 100 health indicators. Most studies, when comparing health care systems, work off of this list.

[Boris The Animal]

Problem with single payer is that it forces all hospitals, doctors, etc. to work for the government ala Soviet Union style. Also, there would be no more innovation and R&D on new breakthroughs because the profit motive is now gone.

[DGUtley]

I'm sorry, I'm not buying that the US has the most inefficient healthcare system in the Western world, or that it produces the worst results.

The general welfare clause wasn't used as a justification for the ACA.
I'll have to research whether it was used as a justification for the Medicare obligation.

[Newpublius]

I'm sorry, I'm not buying that the US has the most inefficient healthcare system in the Western world, or that it produces the worst results.

The general welfare clause wasn't used as a justification for the ACA.
I'll have to research whether it was used as a justification for the Medicare obligation.

Of course it doesn't really matter, General Welfare encompasses any legislative topic.

I refer you to Federalist 41 where Madison entertains the objections of the Anti-Federalists about the General Welfare Clause:

"
''But what color can the objection have, when a specification of the objects alluded to by these general terms immediately follows, and is not even separated by a longer pause than a semicolon? If the different parts of the same instrument ought to be so expounded, as to give meaning to every part which will bear it, shall one part of the same sentence be excluded altogether from a share in the meaning; and shall the more doubtful and indefinite terms be retained in their full extent, and the clear and precise expressions be denied any signification whatsoever? For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars.
But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/usconst.asp), we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter. The objection here is the more extraordinary, as it appears that the language used by the convention is a copy from the articles of Confederation (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/artconf.asp). The objects of the Union among the States, as described in article third, are "their common defense, security of their liberties, and mutual and general welfare. '' The terms of article eighth are still more identical: "All charges of war and all other expenses that shall be incurred for the common defense or general welfare, and allowed by the United States in Congress, shall be defrayed out of a common treasury,'' etc. A similar language again occurs in article ninth. Construe either of these articles by the rules which would justify the construction put on the new Constitution (http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/usconst.asp), and they vest in the existing Congress a power to legislate in all cases whatsoever.
But what would have been thought of that assembly, if, attaching themselves to these general expressions, and disregarding the specifications which ascertain and limit their import, they had exercised an unlimited power of providing for the common defense and general welfare? I appeal to the objectors themselves, whether they would in that case have employed the same reasoning in justification of Congress as they now make use of against the convention. How difficult it is for error to escape its own condemnation! " - Federalist 41, Madison writing under the pseudonym Publius

Madison says the obvious, there'd be no point to the enumerated powers at all.

In his veto of the public works Madison explodes the notion of an expansive commerce clause and general welfare clause:

"

"The power to regulate commerce among the several States" can not include a power to construct roads and canals, and to improve the navigation of water courses in order to facilitate, promote, and secure such commerce without a latitude of construction departing from the ordinary import of the terms strengthened by the known inconveniences which doubtless led to the grant of this remedial power to Congress.
To refer the power in question to the clause "to provide for common defense and general welfare" would be contrary to the established and consistent rules of interpretation, as rendering the special and careful enumeration of powers which follow the clause nugatory and improper. Such a view of the Constitution would have the effect of giving to Congress a general power of legislation instead of the defined and limited one hitherto understood to belong to them, the terms "common defense and general welfare" embracing every object and act within the purview of a legislative trust."

Now, back to the real world where......General Welfare is now considered a substantive power.

Madison is correct, doesn't matter what constitutional hook you use, ultimately General Welfare is always a fallback.

There is truly no longer a limited government of enumerated powers. It is ONLY restricted by the Bill of Rights. Thank God the anti-federalists insisted on that.

[Newpublius]

I'll have to research whether it was used as a justification for the Medicare obligation.

Medicare of course is a Social Security Amendment and you can see Helvering v Davis and of course it is General Welfare.

Traditionally of course, federalism was supposed to permit the federal government to exercise 'few and defined' powers and the state governments to exercise 'numerous and indefinite powers' which were typically described as the traditional power of the state to regulate for the 'health, welfare and safety'

I mean, for christ sake, its the first one!

The average American of course doesn't care one iota about federalism whatsoever, but federalism truly is the answer to the politcal loggerjam that confronts our nation.

How many here know who their state representatives are? The ones that go to your respective state capitals. Many HERE might know, but I don't know and I don't care either because really its just irrelevant to me. I just don't pay enough taxes to the state to care. Right now we pay our total taxes mostly to the feds, about 2/3-3/4 to feds, the balance to the state.

If you flipped that, the federal election would be page 10 news on the NY Times.

You wouldn't have to try to force the entire nation to be 'democratic socialists' --- California could just do it. NY could just do it.....

Instead liberals insisted on their monolithic Leviathan. They got it, and now there are consequences, and the consequence is that we have lost the inherent flexibility that federalism is capable of providing.

[Tahuyaman]

President Obama calls for public Option as Obamacare crashes

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-calls-public-option-hedged/story?id=42949512

That was always the goal. The ACA was hastily thrown together. It was never intended to be a success. Even Obama said that it was viewed as a first step toward a real single payer system. That's why we needed to pass it to find out what's in it. It didn't matter what was in it. It was always intended to fail.

The left always claims that their failures are because of a lack of funding and or not enough government control. Their remedy for a failed policy a,ways is doubling down on that failure. Never will they admit that a policy or idea is a failure. The failures are used as a reason to expand on their failed ideas.

It's a strange philosophy.

[Professor Peabody]

President Obama calls for public Option as Obamacare crashes

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/obama-calls-public-option-hedged/story?id=42949512

Does anyone think their implementation of a "public option" would fare any better than Obama Care considering it's from the same people?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhYJS80MgYA

The Nine Most Terrifying Words

[Professor Peabody]

I'm sorry, I'm not buying that the US has the most inefficient healthcare system in the Western world, or that it produces the worst results.

The general welfare clause wasn't used as a justification for the ACA.
I'll have to research whether it was used as a justification for the Medicare obligation.

VA health care for everyone.

[Common Sense]

VA health care for everyone.

That's not how single payer works, at least not here in Canada.

Under the VA, the military (government) runs the hospitals. In Canada, the government (provinces) act as insurer. Hospitals and Doctor's offices are private institutions.

The comparison is invalid.

[Tahuyaman]

President Obama calls for public Option as Obamacare crashes
The cure for a failed policy is expanding on the failed policy.